12. Aaron
12
AARON
D aisy let me lead her into the dining room. Designed to hold two dozen at the oversized table, the room was dark and empty. Candlelight from the centerpieces flickered on the walls. A hundred years ago, the tall windows would have let in quite a lot of light. Now the mansion was in perpetual shadow.
Daisy still looked shaken.
Good.
No, not good.
I should have just seduced her there in the library, maybe gone down on her, sped her along ’til, before she knew it, she was spreading her legs for me and begging for my hot cum in her ass.
I’d close out the contract then ignore her for the next thirty days.
But the gall of her, to act like she had the upper hand on me, like she had me backed into the corner.
Like she had won.
You can’t make it personal.
It was the number one rule of insurance.
It. Is. Not. Personal.
Silent servants waited against the wall while Daisy slowly walked around the table. The housekeeper had repurposed all the wedding flowers and turned them into elaborate décor for the dining room.
The whole place smelled like a funeral parlor.
“Where do I sit?” My wife’s voice echoed in the empty room.
I shrugged.
“Where do you normally sit?” she rallied.
“Here.” I rested my hand on a seat.
“Fine.” She turned on her heel and walked all the way to the opposite end of the table.
I could barely see her around the flower centerpieces.
Normally, I would review documents while I ate. That was verboten per the contract. The bride and groom were to engage in conversation. So instead, I would have to yell down the table if I wanted to talk to Daisy.
“No reading at the table.” My voice carried.
“Is that in the contract?” she called back.
“Yes.”
“Didn’t catch that! Speak up.”
The servants, damn them, were leaning heavily on their Christmas bonuses and trying not to crack smiles.
“This is ridiculous,” I seethed.
“Excuse me?” Daisy signaled to Jared.
“I told you not to talk to them,” I shouted.
“What?” Daisy called back. “I can’t hear you.”
She addressed one man, who was placing a shallow bowl of mint soup in front of her.
I couldn’t quite make out what she was whispering. I craned my neck around the centerpiece.
“Shall I move that, sir?” one of the servants offered.
“Yes, get rid of it. Please.”
As Michael picked up the oversized flower arrangement, another footman was ferrying pillows to a chair next to Daisy.
“Absolutely not. That cat is not sitting at the table,” I barked.
Dorian hopped up on his throne and meowed his thanks as one of the servers set a plate of chopped tuna for him.
“No, he can’t sit here. Coleman, get rid of that cat.”
“Might want to speak up, sir. Not sure if they can hear you down there.” The sommelier poured wine in my glass.
I stood up.
Stalked down the length of the table.
If the contract didn’t explicitly spell out that dinner had to be taken formally in the dining room, I’d make us just eat a sandwich in the garage.
“Welcome to Antarctica.” Daisy blew me a kiss.
“I said that cat cannot—what the—” The servants had already moved my place setting down the table and across from Dorian.
“No, move that back. I’m not sitting in front of the cat,” I ordered.
“Now who’s being a spoiled princess?” Daisy tested her soup and made a happy noise.
Fuming, I sat down. Glared at the bright-green soup. “It looks like slime.”
The chef had never served me anything like this before.
“It’s my mom’s recipe from her Springtime cookbook,” Daisy said happily as she ate her soup. “Jared told me they bought a bunch of peas at the market, and I suggested this dish.”
“The chef added a little more heavy cream I believe than the recipe called for, per your suggestion, Daisy,” the butler said smoothly.
“Just don’t tell my mom!” She laughed.
I scowled.
Dorian hacked up something.
The servants brought out the next course.
My hand gripped the knife.
“Yum, pasta! The chef said she sources the veggies from the garden at your grandparents’ Hampton house.” Daisy twirled the noodles around her fork. “Progressive of you to hire a woman to run your prison kitchen.”
My knife scraped on the plate.
“You’ve really upgraded from what your father built.”
“ Fuck you .”
The plates crashed to the floor, making more work for the servants, but fuck her.
“Fuck you!” Daisy shot back. “You’re the one who was getting off on it, scaring me with how you were going to hurt me during sex.”
I almost yelled, in what I was sure was a throwback to my Victorian ancestors, “ Not in front of the servants! ” But they were gone.
My staff knew the basics of what the contract entailed—they were too well paid to say anything, but they knew. However, it was different if Daisy screamed it at the top of her lungs.
“Shut the fuck up.” I was breathing hard.
I wanted to leave, to retreat. But then she’d know she’d won, and I’d void the contract.
The doors to the dining room opened, the servants drawn by the crash.
“I’ll bring you another plate, sir,” Jared offered.
“Don’t bother.”
“A scotch, then?”
“Sure.”
It had been like this in school.
Daisy had no problem slamming her hand on the nuclear button.
That had to be why she had suddenly hated me. She’d found out about what my father had done and was determined to punish me for it, like Grayson’s mother had him. Like my mother’s family did me.
I sat there and drank and fumed in silence, watching the cat gorge himself on raw fish while Daisy murmured to him to slow down, that he didn’t want to get sick again.
Because she was right.
I was my father.
I had kidnapped a woman and forced her to be in a relationship with me because I was incapable of being a normal human being.